I feel like I haven’t gotten anything accomplished today. I got my W2 problem sorted out yesterday, and was able to file my federal return today (state isn’t accepting e-files until the end of the month). That’s something, I guess. I also got some photos of this morning’s extra lovely sunrise and uploaded them, along with some sunset photos from earlier in the week. That’s about it, though.
Sunrise
Sunrise
Pylon at Sunset
Sunset
We had a nice, hard frost last night. It’s been warm and wet and yucky, so this was a very welcome change. It seems as if the local critter population appreciated it, too. The birds were extra boisterous this morning, and there seems to have been a higher than normal amount of bunny traffic in Harriet’s yard (cuz, it is all hers, dontchaknow?).
I got some pictures of her patrolling the perimeter, nose-to-the-ground, tracking rabbity interlopers. Every so often, she’d pause, stuff her face in a pile of leaves, huff and snort, then move along to the next spot.
I also got a couple of what I think are good “stacked” (ha!) photos, taken from the rear side, one with her head facing away, and one with it turned back toward me. I nearly missed the second one, because she saw or heard something interesting and was off like a bolt of lightning.
I’ve been finding that it’s difficult to get outdoor photos of her, because whenever I’m outside with her, her attention is focused on me. It was much easier when there were two dogs, because she was more apt to ignore me in favor of more entertaining companionship.
I also got some photos of the frosty grass and frost crystals on one of the young black walnut trees. Since I was up way past my bedtime last night, finishing up all the image issues left over from the migration from Blogger, I was lucky that I woke up before the frost had melted away. I had just enough time to get a few photos before it started to disappear.
I like my brownies to be chewy, with a crispy crust. They must also be rich tasting, with a nice balance between sweet, chocolatey goodness and salty (real) buttery-ness. After years of tweaking, I have finally achieved what I consider The Perfect Brownie. They’re easy peasy to make (prep takes about 5-10 minutes, tops), and don’t require any of what I consider “non-basic” ingredients, like baking chocolate. You can add chopped nuts, but I tend to be a purist.
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbls butter (not margarine or shortening!)
1 tsp vanilla (again, the real thing, not imitation, vanilla flavored gunk)
2 eggs
Add all the dry ingredients to a bowl and whisk together to blend and remove any lumpy bits. Microwave the butter in a microwave safe dish (I use a Pyrex measuring cup), just until melted. You don’t want it too hot, because it will cook the eggs when you add them. Remove and add the vanilla and eggs. Pierce the egg yolks and stir them into the butter until they’re loosely incorporated. Don’t whip them or worry about thoroughly mixing them, though. Less is more! Pour into the dry ingredients and gently mix until everything is blended. The batter will probably be thicker than what you are accustomed to when making brownies, but It’s Okay. Promise.
Pour into a greased 8″ or 9″ round pan and bake at 325F for about 20-30 minutes. I’ve found that cooking time varies widely, even when baked in the same oven. Also, my oven is a runs hot, so you might need to adjust your temperature and/or cooking time accordingly.
This makes super chewy brownies, with a caramelized crust. They’re a little on the thin side, but that’s what allows them to be crispy and chewy. If they get much thicker, they become cakey, which would make them ineligible for the title of Brownies of Dqqm.
It occurred to me that Mr. Jawbone might have once belonged to a pig, so I went a-Googling, and sure enough, it did.
Credit: javelina jawbone, by Drew Mackie
I think the sacral vertebrae are bovine in origin, but I’m not having much luck Googling up any images that are helpful. The closest I’ve come are anatomical drawings.
Credit: Internet Archive, Image from page 47 of “A text-book of veterinary obstetrics : including the diseases and accidents incidental to pregnancy, parturition and early age in the domesticated animals” (1901)
I’m calling it Good Enough.
As I was driving in to work this morning, I did some more thinking on good car music vs. not-so-good car music. There are some things I love to listen to, but that I don’t like to drive to. For example, I like both Cat Stevens and Marilyn Manson, but only one of those things belongs in my car. So this is why, as I was listening to Antichrist Superstar this ayem, I was actually thinking of hippy-dippy music. Which reminded me of New Year’s Eve and the Magical Chair of Giving.
My neighbor and I attended a New Year party at a friend’s house, which was all sorts of good fun. At one point, we were both hanging out upstairs, when she realized she’d lost one of her hair sticks. So, she started rooting around in cushions of the big, squishy easy chair she’d been enveloped in. And, she started pulling out a vast and varied array of objects. The chair kept giving, and giving, and giving. The penultimate gift was a mixed CD with both Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman on it. She, a little drunk at this point, handed it to me, thinking it was mine. Why, yes, I do happen to have that those two albums on one CD, but that particular copy–despite the fact that the handwriting it bears looks eerily like mine–does not, in fact, belong to me. Very odd. Who knew I wasn’t the only person on Urth who listens to Cat Stevens and who decided to put those two albums on one CD?
Lower Jawbone from a Pig
I had been planning on sleeping in late, then spending the day in my PJs in front of the teevee, watching the Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back. But, I was wakened at the ass-crack of dawn by my across-the-lane neighbor, who was loading his horses into their trailer. He’s a man of very few words, though he seems friendly enough. He smiles and nods at me when our paths cross, and has occasionally mowed my outside-the-fence grass when it’s gotten extra unkempt[1]. He loves his horses, though[2], and spends a lot of time hanging out in the barn with them or taking them on weekend riding trips. I assume that’s where he was off to bright and early this morning. Which is all a round about way of saying that my plans for an extended day of ass-sitting in front of the television were shot to hell. I ended up getting up early, cleaning the kitchen (I never got around to finishing it yesterday), vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, and, after months of procrastination, sorting out the laundry room. The laundry room is where I throw all the junk I don’t know what to do with it. There are old couch pillows, bags of plastics for recycling, jumbled tools, a mortally wounded dryer, stacks of games, three old aquariums and their associated paraphernalia, window screens that I never put away properly, and lord only knows what else, hidden under, between, and behind the aforementioned.
One of the things I found was a jaw bone and some vertebrae I was given by a friend. (It pays to have friends who understand one’s fondness for weird stuff, and who will cater to it.) I don’t know what I’ll eventually use them for, but in the meantime, I had planned on using them for sketching. I love drawing bones, and these are nice and big. For now, I’ve photographed them, which provided all sorts of entertainment for Harriet and Pandora. They both thought the bones might, just possibly, be for them. Ha! Harriet was crestfallen when I told her to back off, and she realized that she wasn’t going to get to investigate more closely.
Speaking of motivation and procrastination: I missed my blogoversary yesterday, which is about par for the course. I tend to do the same thing with my birthday. I’ll remember it a few days ahead of time, forget it on the day, then remember it again a few days later. I’m kind of surprised I stuck with it for this long, because I’m not always good at following through with things. My intentions are good, but I’m often sorely lacking in the motivation department. I haven’t managed to make daily updates, though I was delusional enough in the beginning to think I might do so. But, I have been fairly consistent, which is good enough.
So, here’s to another year of blogging!
Sacrum from a Cow
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[1] He spends an inordinate amount of time on his riding mower. I suspect he’s one of those folks who finds mowing therapeutic. They’ve got, I think, three acres of land, about half of which is beautifully manicured grass. If you’ve looked at photos of my, um, “yard,” you’ll probably have noticed that mine is not anything approaching manicured. I hate mowing and really couldn’t care less how my yard looks. It used to be pasture, and wasn’t maintained at all, aside from the occasional bush hogging, until I moved in, so I figure anything I do, no matter how pitiful, is an improvement. Still, I’m sure it irks my neighbor no end that he has to look at my sad and sorry excuse for a lawn.
[2] When it’s really quiet out, I can sometimes hear him whistling songs or talking to the horses.
![000_0005[1]](https://farm1.staticflickr.com/42/83175866_514cef7a07_z.jpg?zz=1)
First, the cute, in the form of Miss Harriet Brown.
The rest of the photos were taken this morning from the driveway. I’ve been meaning to get some pictures of the driveway itself for months now. It’s more off-road than on-road. The center driveway photo shows the trench SBC cut when they laid phone cable. I have no idea what on earth they were smoking when they did it. It should have been laid along the edge of the driveway, not in it. After repeated complaints about poor sound quality and dropped calls, they eventually came out and moved the line. Unfortunately, they did not do anything about the huge trench they’d made.
Every time it rains, water funnels down the driveway and washes away the gravel, widening and deepening the trench. Last summer, while I was house sitting for the neighbors, we had several days of heavy rain. The bottom of the trench shifted and deepened, and my poor little car was eviscerated and mortally wounded. So, that’s why, when I was car hunting, I wanted something with both high clearance and part-time 4WD. I do not want to repeat that particular experience.
You may ask why we don’t just fix the driveway? I rent, and the folks who live next door don’t own the driveway, either. They only have an easement to use it. The owner keeps chucking gravel at the problem, but it’s only a bandaid solution. Maybe it’ll be fixed, someday, but I’m not holding my breath. In the meantime, I now have an off-road vehicle.
The Driveway of Dqqm
Abandoned Truck Bed & Cap
Old Tires
Abandoned Trailer
Gas Easement
Pylon
Bird House
Fence Near Entrance to State Forest
Stream Along Driveway
Foolish human! A raised finger cannot stem the tide of eeevil.
Plotting
Sweet, Sweet Lovin’ Soothes the Eeevil Beast
It must be time for Saturday cat-blogging.
I’ve never understood the attraction cats have for sinks, but over the years, several of the cats I’ve lived with have been sink sleepers. Rory, too. His favorite place to hang out–aside from his kitty condo–is the bathroom sink. It means that I often have to brush my teeth and wash my face and hands in the tub, but I’ve gotten used to it.
I couldn’t get a photo of him curled up, asleep, in the sink, which is unfortunate, because he seems so snug and comfortable. But, I did get a few of him being sweet and/or eeevil.
Rory’s tail isn’t in a weird position. He’s a bobtail, so that’s all there is of it. It isn’t usually as poofed out as it is in the first picture. He’d been rolling around in the sink, which gave him a little bit of static cling. I’m blaming the new cat food, which is seriously drying out his skin and coat. Petting him is a bit like petting a sparkler. Also note the Eeevil Glowy Eyes of DQQM in the middle picture. He is All Bad, All the Time, Bay-BEE!1!! Except when he’s groovin’ on the sweet, sweet lovin’, and even then, Teh Eeevil is lurking, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Mostly, though, he’s just a damnfine cat and a total riot to live with.
In other news, I stopped by the Backstreet Mission[1] on my way home from work the other day. I picked up quite a few books to use for arting, including some ’70s vintage world and US history text books for high school and middle school, a 1939 algebra text book, a high school world cultures text book (again, from the 1970s), the Better Homes and Gardens Baby Book (1943 ed., which is chock-a-block with great illustrations and photos), the Better Homes and Gardens Family Medical Guide (1964 ed., again, with the groovy illustrations and photos), and a 1931 US history text. Most of these will be used for my new altered book project, which I intend to get started on this weekend.
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[1] I’m a big fan of shopping at thrift stores. Not only can you find lots of cool junk at cheap prices (something that anyone who makes art with recycled junk should appreciate), but the money generally goes to the folks who need it the most. The Backstreet Mission does a lot of really good things for folks in the community, and I like being able to support them whenever I can.
I finished uploading the rest of my existing art images to my Flickr account. Or, at least, everything that currently exists in digital format. I’ve got a few new things that need to be scanned and a couple of paintings at my mom’s house that haven’t been photographed, but they’ll have to wait until the motivation strikes me. I’m hoping that I’ll have lots of arting and scanning time over the up-coming three-day weekend.
Solstice Celebration
Image credit: SOHO – EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA
The sun came out today, and it was blinding. Harriet played for awhile outdoors, hunting bunnies and giving the squirrels a piece of her mind. I finally got a photo of her with her eyes squeezed half shut, because of the bright sunlight. I love it when she does that.
I let Pandora come outside with us for a little while, too, so that she could explore the snow while I cleaned off the car. She’s pretty unflappable, but she didn’t know quite what to think of the snow. It took her about 30 seconds to decide that it was not her idea of a good time. I let her back inside, and she hasn’t asked to go out since. Usually, she sticks her head out the door whenever I let the dog in or out, but I think her curiosity has been satisfied, at least for the time being.
A lot of the snow has been melted by the sun, but it was so cold today that there’s still a crust of it covering everything. I noticed that the snow on my car, which is dark, has melted completely, while the neighbor’s truck, which is white, is still coated in it. Yay for solar energy. It’ll probably be singing a different tune next summer, but for now, it’s nice.
I stayed home from work today, but didn’t get much done. I’d planned on working on a couple of art projects, but all I managed was some scanning and Photoshopping of old journal entries. I uploaded them to Flickr (Hemp-bound Journal and Dada Journal), and will eventually get them uploaded to the website.
I had intended to do some serious sleeping in this morning, but, alas, it was not to be. I woke up a couple of hours ago–too early to want to stay awake, but too late to reasonably go back to bed–to a solid grey day. I should have known that the good weather couldn’t last. The sunset last night was gorgeous, though, so I guess that makes up for it. It was an blindingly intense orange, with a ginormous sun pillar. I’ve seen sun pillars before, but never one this large or well defined. Of course, I was A) in my car and B) without my camera, so I didn’t get any pictures of it. Damn! What makes me cranky is that I almost picked up my camera on my way out the door that morning, but I decided it was pointless to take it along, as I was just going to work. That’ll learn me!
So, no pretty sunset pictures today, but I do have a photo I took last spring, just as the foliage was starting to unfurl. I love the lacy, delicate look of the pale, new leaves, and the softness of the mist. It’s just the ticket on a disgusting winter day, I think.
I did some cross-pollination last night. I uploaded a metric butt-load of images from my website to my Flickr account, and added/rearranged some of my sets. Dawn asked about my Flickr account, and it occurred to me that the audiences for Flickr, blogs, and websites are slightly different, so it might be a good idea to duplicate information. It’ll be an interesting sociological experiment to see how the numbers fall out.
I still have to upload watercolors (such as they are), paintings on canvas, the ABC book, and a few odds and ends, and do a little bit more fine-tuning of sets, but everything else is pretty much finished, I think. Hopefully, I’ll have time to finish it in the next day or two. I also found a couple of images that’d been uploaded to Flickr, that hadn’t made it to the website. I have no idea how that happened, but it’ll be soon rectified, as well.
It was sort of weird going back through some of the gluebook and composition book images. I did the typical “That sucks,” “That’s not bad,” and “I totally forgot about that one” routine. But, by the time I’d finished, I also found that my head was swirling with half-formed ideas. So maybe it was a good thing that I decided to do this at this point in time.
red paper boat 